Lindsey Graham: “the letter was an effort by the legislative delegation in the State of Washington to get the DOE to come up with some…”

“the letter was an effort by the legislative delegation in the State of Washington to get the DOE to come up with some classification system for Hanford. Our distinguished Presiding Officer from the State of Idaho has been working for months now for his State to see if they could come up with a classification system for the State of Idaho. In February 2004, the Governor of Washington indicated he would designate someone to enter into discussion on behalf of the State of Washington. Governor Locke's chief of staff called the Deputy Secretary to indicate he was the Governor's designee to hold discussions with the Department of Energy. Shortly thereafter, the Department of Energy shared draft language with the State of Washington. What has been going on here for a very long time is a collaborative process between the three States and the Department of Energy to remediate the environment when it comes to high-level waste in a manner acceptable to the State. That is the process. That has always been the process, and that must be the process. But here is what we do not want to do as we negotiate individually. We do not want to, as my senior Senator said, have a State have the ability to define high-level waste because it is a national concern and a national issue. So we have been jealously guarding that concept. This amendment does not give the State of South Carolina the ability to define high-level waste because we would have 50 different versions.…”